Page 103 of Veil of Dust

The fire rises.

The Elder is ash now.

And so is the kingdom he built.

But me?

I’m walking out whole.

And I don’t look back.

Tiziano finds me minutes later.

His boots echo across the fractured marble, steady and sure.

I don’t turn when I hear him. I already know it’s him. Nobody else walks like that—not in this place. Not anymore.

He’s marked with ash, his shirt torn at the collar. Soot streaks his throat and jaw. Blood, too, but I don’t think it’s his. His eyes scan the wreckage. Then land on the body near my feet.

The Elder.

Dead. Sprawled. Mouth open in a frozen gasp, red soaking the folds of his once-regal robe.

Tiziano says nothing.

Not a word.

He just walks past me, stops at the Elder’s desk—half-burned, still standing—and kneels beside the safe I cracked open minutes ago. The stack of documents I pulled now rests on the desk’s corner, files bundled tight. Names, schedules, payoffs, old threats etched in ink thick enough to choke a legacy.

He picks them up.

Pulls a match from his coat pocket.

Strikes it against the wood.

The flame catches.

He touches it to the edge of the top folder. It curls. Blackens. Crumbles.

I watch the fire move—licking over signatures, faces, locations,codes.

Line by line, the Order erases itself.

The chamber glows orange now.

Smoke thickens around us, climbing up the walls and curling into the cracked chandelier above.

Still, no words pass between us.

It’s not silence.

It’s aftermath.

He throws another bundle into the fire.

I finally speak.

“You’re sure nothing in there matters now?”

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